The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, along with other departments, has officially published its eighth batch of new professions, including 11 roles like digital twin engineers and embodied intelligent robot application technicians, alongside 23 new job categories such as low-altitude logistics operators and low-altitude intelligent network system administrators. With this release, China has now introduced a total of 121 new professions across eight batches.
In recent years, the rapid evolution of new technologies, industries, and business formats has accelerated the emergence of novel job roles. Among the newly announced professions, digital positions are the most prominent, comprising five roles—digital twin engineer, embodied intelligent robot application technician, industrial product digital modeler—which represent 45.5% of the total. This brings the cumulative count of digital professions in China to 113.
Specifically, the role of embodied intelligent robot application technician directly aligns with the booming embodied intelligence sector. According to the official job definition, these professionals use remote control equipment, spatial digitalization tools, and simulation testing platforms to collect, generate, and process multimodal interaction data for robots, fine-tune and adapt algorithm models, and handle on-site deployment, debugging, and maintenance of system software and hardware. Two sub-categories—data collector and trainer for embodied intelligent robots—have also been established under this profession, meaning that enabling robots to perform tasks like grasping and moving items requires not just algorithm development but also personnel to gather visual, tactile, and force data from real-world robot interactions, as well as conduct model training, testing, and system debugging.
Industry insiders point out that the simultaneous announcement of 11 new professions and 23 new job categories reflects a distinction between the two concepts. New professions are independent roles that enter the national occupational classification system with specific codes, clear definitions, and main duties, while new job categories are more detailed sub-roles that emerge within an existing profession due to further specialization of technology, business, and specific work content.
Notably, three of the new professions—microgrid administrator, hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer, and water electrolysis hydrogen producer—are classified as green jobs, accounting for 27.3% of the batch, with the microgrid administrator falling under both green and digital categories. China's total number of green professions now stands at 142. Meanwhile, the modern services sector has seen new roles closer to daily life, such as corporate sustainability planner and incense crafting artist among the professions, and new job categories like new energy vehicle inspector, aging-friendly renovation designer, smart furniture installer, fresh-cut flower processor, and ice and snow sculptor.
The expansion of the low-altitude economy and artificial intelligence has also spawned job categories like low-altitude logistics operator under logistics service provider and intelligent agent developer under generative AI system applicator. Experts anticipate that AI-related professions will continue to expand into application deployment while also becoming more refined and specialized, generating additional niche roles as technology integrates into more production and service scenarios, thereby driving further division of labor across the occupational system.
Looking back at the evolution of the occupational catalog, the introduction of new roles has consistently kept pace with industrial development. For instance, in the low-altitude economy, the first batch of professions included drone pilot to address the urgent need for operational talent, followed by drone assembly and maintenance technician to complete the equipment maintenance chain. By the seventh and eighth batches, roles like drone fleet flight planner, low-altitude logistics operator, and low-altitude intelligent network system administrator have emerged, expanding job responsibilities from simple technical operations to cross-disciplinary applications in logistics, tourism operations, and urban governance.
Beyond the low-altitude economy, professions from AI engineer to intelligent connected vehicle tester and now embodied intelligent robot application technician and microgrid administrator are being born at the forefront of new technologies, industries, and business formats, serving as talent barometers for industrial upgrading.
The State Council's implementation plan for prioritizing employment in the 15th Five-Year Plan emphasizes strengthening synergy between industry and employment, stabilizing employment scale in labor-intensive manufacturing, expanding service sector capacity, and unlocking job potential in emerging fields. Experts argue that while new industries and business formats continue to emerge, creating new professions, there is still a need to enhance industry-employment coordination, refine occupational standard systems, and develop supporting skills standards and training assessment protocols to improve the efficiency of matching talent supply with industrial demand.
For workers, official recognition of new professions means that roles previously operating under different names across companies can now converge toward unified definitions and capability requirements, enabling further alignment of occupational standards, skills training, and talent evaluation systems. In fact, this August, the Ministry organized the development of 123 occupational standards, including for public comment, covering AI-related roles such as AI digital human trainer, generative AI system applicator, and generative AI animation producer.
As these standards take shape, there will be clearer benchmarks for what practitioners should know and how different skill levels are assessed. Training policies are also extending into these new sectors. A large-scale vocational skills enhancement campaign running from 2025 to 2027, anchored on the "skills illuminate the future" initiative, prioritizes training in advanced manufacturing, digital economy, and low-altitude economy. The digital economy track focuses on boosting talent supply in big data, embodied intelligence, and data security, while the low-altitude economy track covers aircraft R&D and manufacturing, infrastructure operations, flight operations, and scenario applications.
From naming new positions to establishing standards and conducting training and evaluation, the release of new professions effectively bridges the pathway from industrial demand to talent development. According to the Ministry, publishing these new professions and job categories helps open up more diverse career growth channels for workers, guides vocational education and professional development, and promotes more precise alignment between talent supply and job requirements. Moving forward, efforts will accelerate the development of standards for new professions, vigorously enhance the capabilities of practitioners in these roles, and smooth the channels for talent advancement.